Has ayone of those people played in S3, or did they just quit due to the horrible state of poke supports in any season from 4 and onwards?
In S3 you mostly saw Sona, Thresh, Zyra, Elise, Lulu, Fiddle, those are 4 poke supports out of 6.
Why didn't people bitch about them then, and why do people bitch about them now, even if they are worthless? (except Lulu and Thresh ofc)
RiotRiotRepertoir10 votesIf I had to guess, it's because the entire premise behind poke tends to be trying to damage your opposition without being able to be damaged in return. This isn't to say the reality is that the opposition usually has no recourse, but when played well, poke can be frustrating to deal with.
VDc0zCqe0w2 votesIf I had to guess, it's because the entire premise behind poke tends to be trying to damage your opposition without being able to be damaged in return. This isn't to say the reality is that the opposition usually has no recourse, but when played well, poke can be frustrating to deal with.
well that's unexpected lol, didn't think a red would comment such a strange topic
btw, i don't know if you will ever update/buff Spellthief, but its upgrades really suck at the moment, just saying
ChaosThief1 votesRepertoir is everywhere now. And probably the favorite Rioteer of the community at this point.
Luner Hunter1 votes-_- and ended up with sona's "rework" cough gutting * cough cough *even though everyone on the pbe said it was shit :|
g07h4xf001 votesIf I had to guess, it's because the entire premise behind poke tends to be trying to damage your opposition without being able to be damaged in return. This isn't to say the reality is that the opposition usually has no recourse, but when played well, poke can be frustrating to deal with.
All poke, not just support pokes. Nobody likes losing half their health bar from 2 screens away (
)
I thought the whole reason behind poke is to break annoying tower sieges / defenses. But you've already made towers so weak that now you can just tower dive and kill their entire team without punishment. Or buff your minion wave with something like 
or baron buff. At this point, poke is just an annoyance that doesn't add that much fun or strategy to the game, especially when cooldowns and mana costs are basically nonexistent.
It's much more satisfying to hit a long-range poke if it cost like 200 mana and had a 20 second cooldown, for example. When poke is essentially free it feels dull to use and frustrating to be used against you.
Poke is like the definition of non-interactive gameplay. "I'm just going to keep pressing 'Q' over and over until I win" as is the entire premise behind 
champion design.
Moulin Rouge6 votesAs a janna player, I'd rather play against Sona, Soraka, and Nami than Thresh, Leona and Blitz. Sure, I can disengage them, but doing that requires some massive reaction time and use of almost my whole kit. Meanwhile, all they have to do is Q. :P
Plus, against other squishies, I can actually use my whirlwind for quick engage with my ADC instead of holding onto it until the shit hits the fan and we need to escape. I feel like when I'm against Tank supports they are dominating the lane and I'm just trying to keep them at bay so my ADC can farm while against poke supports we're actually having a fair fight.
foinhas4 votesbecause people forget that skillshot's can be avoided and poke, in general, has cooldowns
TotalJerk2 votes
lolwut
Trebbi3 votesPeople bitched about them to
HumanPerfect3 votesTaking damage is anti-fun. Healing is anti-fun. Not being able to deal damage is anti-fun. Getting CC'd is anti-fun. Dying is anti-fun.
"Anti-fun" is probably the single worst term Riot has embedded into the community.
BastionKross2 votesPeople don't think poke supports are unfun.
Riot thinks poke supports are unfun.
They also think sustain supports are unfun, and that being able to heal another champion in lane is a crime that is punishable with multiple nerfs. (Unless you're 
)
Basically, unless you're capable of making those flashy #LC$BigPlay$, Riot doesn't want you supporting. Because you're boring.
AsphodelNext2 votesPretty much every support I play (Karma, Lux, Morg) is a poke support, and I think they're very fun to play.
Taryn2 votesThe reason people complain about poke supports (Sona being the prime example that I'm assuming this post is alluding to) is because those supports have the option to either make the lane "passive" and playing safe, or "aggressive" and dominate the lane.
Players want to be able to play their Leona/Thresh/Blitz and hit one button and 100-0 the opposing duo. Unfortunately supports like Sona make that an actual challenge by keeping them at bay, and this causes people to be frustrated with the champion.
Very Hard Engage1 votesbecause if you miss your poke ability, the 2 enemies will just dive you and suddenly you dont bring anything to the "protect your adc" department, unless you exh, and perhaps bait them with your squishy body, then sure. but in the end they have a much better kill lane.
VDc0zCqe0w1 votesbecause if you miss your poke ability, the 2 enemies will just dive you and suddenly you dont bring anything to the "protect your adc" department, unless you exh, and perhaps bait them with your squishy body, then sure. but in the end they have a much better kill lane.
i mean, i already know this, what i'm saying is why people are so mad about poke lanes, when kill lanes are arguably 10 times more boring and stressful
Gwellaouen1 votesFor Leona it's not q, it's e. XD
Thresh is more an hybrid tough. Like he is a poking support first but when he gets enough souls, he can begin engaging harder as other agressive supports like Leona, Blitzcrank, Taric. Before I was buying Relic on him but ... Eheh, I changed my mind a long time ago: It's suicide. XD Early game it's very difficult.
Poke supports aka mage supports can beat the agressive ones because those need to engage to do damage. The poke supports can poke, eh yeah, the agressive one faster.
Count Buffon1 votesFor the last few months, the meta has been more tank-heavy than it had been for a year or so prior. 5.16 might change that, though.
One issue with poke supports is that they don't get to scale, while hard CC is relevant regardless of scaling. So sometimes you see Lulu mid, but LCS support Lulu is less common. Annie gets a stun, and she has good base damage, so she gets to support.
I think tanky champions are more forgiving, but backfire really hard if your team is behind. Hitting things with your face is easier than landing a life-or-death max range tornado IMO. I say this as someone who doesn't play squishies much, so I could be biased by what I've gotten used to.
Count Buffon1 votesAlso, I'm not sure why Karma isn't picked more. When Janna/Lulu are pick/banned in some LCS games, the commenters were like, "oh man, they stole all the shields from the protect the Kog'Maw comp!" and I'm like, "wait, what?"
Maybe I'm just ignorant and her numbers are down, but it doesn't seem like it...?
Sassmast3r1 votesI can answer that; Why? Why use her when you can use Thresh? What does she offer, late game especially, that Thresh does not? I main Karma, I only use her to have fun and honestly have lost any expectations of actually winning the game with her; only the laning phase due to her high damage output and CC.
Count Buffon1 votesYeah, Thresh is kind of all about the hashtag-LCS-big-plays or whatever, but Karma has an AOE shield with a mini Sivir ult. idk, I've never been good at squishies, so I'll take your word for it. I just don't know what Lulu has that she doesn't, conversely. And Lulu goes mid a lot.
Sassmast3r1 votesBefore I continue, do NOT take my word for anything I say. Honestly, I'm not smart with this game. Everything I'm saying is opinionated and probably inaccurate, however this is what I believe is the issue.
Lulu probably has the most CC out of virtually every support in the entire game. But in exchange, what does she lose? Mana. A LOT of it. I don't know about you, but I absolutely hate using Lulu for that one reason. She's like... a hybrid of all-in and poke, and only because she uses so much mana with her abilities. She NEEDS to go all in and get kills fast, because if she doesn't, she kinda just... sits there, manaless. I even have mana regen runes specifically for her as well as Nami, and with Nami I don't have a problem at all mana wise, but Lulu, my god. This brings up the question "Why don't we often see Nami either?" Once again, this is majorly due to the fact that she doesn't support the same way Thresh does. Thresh can become safe, or aggressive, and all at the same time, ensure his ADC never ever dies. Nami? She has to go aggressive! What is the point if you don't ult, then land a bubble, then use Ebb and Flow, then use Tidecallers Blessing on your ADC to just go all in aggressive and destroy! But... what am I supposed to do against a Thresh? He can prevent his ADC from EVER dying to my FULL COMBO as both Nami and Lulu just because of his overloaded kit. Do I hate Thresh? No, because if I do actually manage a victory against him in lane, it feels overwhelmingly good. But the problem? This is very very difficult to do. Thresh is the exact opposite of Lulu. Lulu is very situational, requiring not only a very reactive and preferably mobile ADC, but to also be against people she can exploit. Same with Nami. Nami gets hooked once, and she dies. Lulu won't instantly die... unless she has no mana! Thresh? Thresh can fit into anything. Any team composition. Any laning composition. Tell me, with what ADC does he NOT synergize with? Exactly. And against who does he struggle against? Exactly. He's low risk, high reward, and I find it completely unfair.
Back to Karma. Karma has two major issues.
She has no technical ultimate. I mean, think about it. It enhances her abilities, yes. However, when that shit is on CD, what is she? Nothing. She sits, waiting for her ultimate to come back to either, inflict massive amount of damage, provide her AOE miniature Sivir ultimate, or steal HP from the enemy and CC them for longer. Otherwise, all she can do is poke with a Q that, provided still does quite a lot of damage, is not anywhere near enough to counter tanky people like Thresh or Blitzcrank or Leona who can go all in on her ADC. I mean, what happens in Leona goes all in on your ADC? You can use your ultimate to AOE shield him hm? But then you sacrifice longer CC from her W, which keep in mind, takes so long to ACTUALLY CC the opponent that you most likely won't even be able to save your ADC from an all-in. So then you think "So I can use my ultimate on my tether so I can stun them for longer?" Alright. But then you are forced to sit relatively close to the enemy to not break the tether, which can be already broken relatively easily by just walking away and going back in. So you're putting yourself in danger, which can then cause them to go all in on YOU. Now, you've just miserably failed stunning one enemy, and even if you did manage to stun them, that all in support will just switch focus to you. So now, your shield is on CD because you just used it on your ADC for THEM to run away, now what do you do? So then you're thinking "Well then how about a counter-engage with a Mantra'd Q?" This is what I often do, but here's the cache/catch (fuck me Idk which one it is lol): This requires you're ADC to be INCREDIBLY tactical. He needs to dodge the enemy all-in supports CC (which is more difficult then it sounds). He needs to focus the ADC, which is hard when the enemy support has a shit ton of CC. And last but not least... KARMA DOES NOT DO AS MUCH DAMAGE AS YOU'D THINK IN LANE BEFORE SHE'S BOUGHT AP ITEMS. Focus on her Q, fine. Still not incredibly strong, although it does do quite a lot of damage.
She can't go all-in. Most ADC's as of late are designed to synergize with supports that go all in, such as Jinx or Vayne. Karma can ult-w and sure, gets quite a bunch of CC, but in exchange has to put herself in harms way, which she can't because she's squishy until late game. Like, I remember once, there was a Thresh Kalista bot lane, and I thought "Praise god i chose Karma; now I can destroy Kalista with targeted CC!" Oh wait. She uses her passive, still gets stunned but jumps close enough to her turret that Thresh then grabs me, flay's me, ULTS ME, and I'm virtually stuck, after having just used my shield to enhance my ADC, hoping he would come in as well and focus on Kalista. Oh wait just kidding, not like he would do that ANYWAYS. So there, now Kalista has a kill, and now I have to play safely because my ADC didn't follow up, and literally I'm behind the rest of the game, unable to go all-in because I can't trust my ADC to follow up.
I get it; bronze idiotic scrub here. This is simply my opinion. Do I still main Karma? Yes because she's so much fun!! But do I hope to win games? Nope. Too many people are focused on using supports that can go all-in, get their ADC the most kills, etc. You know, I used to call this game the "League of Bare Minimum Effort" due to having seen so so many people seemingly using the easiest champs, or the ones who could snowball the hardest, etc. But now I look back and regret that. This isn't the League of Bare Minimum Effort. No no, this is the League of "There are 50 champs who are strongest, and the rest aren't quite as strong, much harder to use, and you can't win as easily with them and they desperately need buffs to keep up with the most recently released champions." People want to reign victorious, right? No problem. Why use a champion that's much harder to do that with? Why? I only do it to have fun because I genuinely enjoy Karma's kit, but honestly if I was concerned with winning, I'd be a disphit to use her and expect a win. Just use Blitzcrank. Just use Thresh. People aren't even doing it for the sake of bare minimum effort, they just want to win.
rant over (;-; )
Zone of Endless1 votesIt all comes down to who can make those LC$ BIG PLAYZ
TehNACHO1 votesIt's mostly Sona, due to the fact that she has a much more literal "circle of death" if she maxes her Q and buys AP.
Most of the complaints towards the others are unwarranted due to the fact that they often do have gameplay patterns that are much more engaging, such as Thresh needing to land a skillshot hook that doesn't pass through minions. However, other poke play styles tend to have far more binary play styles, especially those with targeted abilities, thus leading to the complaint that they are anti-fun.
Part of the reason why Sona got a medium sized rework. Force her to commit more to her poke (No more drive by Qs, you gotta also take Sona's sluggish auto animation to get the damage out) and such.
VDc0zCqe0w1 votesIt's mostly Sona, due to the fact that she has a much more literal "circle of death" if she maxes her Q and buys AP.
Most of the complaints towards the others are unwarranted due to the fact that they often do have gameplay patterns that are much more engaging, such as Thresh needing to land a skillshot hook that doesn't pass through minions. However, other poke play styles tend to have far more binary play styles, especially those with targeted abilities, thus leading to the complaint that they are anti-fun.
Part of the reason why Sona got a medium sized rework. Force her to commit more to her poke (No more drive by Qs, you gotta also take Sona's sluggish auto animation to get the damage out) and such.
again, Sona was a top tier support in S3
why no one ever had a problem with her, and why all of a sudden she is evil incarnate?
TehNACHO1 votesI think there's a misunderstanding here.
She isn't all of a sudden evil incarnate, as people have complained about her before. The problem is that it wasn't the popular opinion back then, mostly due to her popularity as an extremely simple support. Not to mention, a combination of things has happened since then, such as the increased gold income that Supports gained post S3 and the number of AP itemization changes leading up to today.
Consider for a moment why such an extremely simple champion would become a top tier champion. Not many skills or outplay potential that allows her to turn games when behind sans her ultimate, and with her old auras, literally half of her power rested in raw stats. Put 2 and 2 together, and the answer is very obvious.
VDc0zCqe0w1 votesI think there's a misunderstanding here.
She isn't all of a sudden evil incarnate, as people have complained about her before. The problem is that it wasn't the popular opinion back then, mostly due to her popularity as an extremely simple support. Not to mention, a combination of things has happened since then, such as the increased gold income that Supports gained post S3 and the number of AP itemization changes leading up to today.
Consider for a moment why such an extremely simple champion would become a top tier champion. Not many skills or outplay potential that allows her to turn games when behind sans her ultimate, and with her old auras, literally half of her power rested in raw stats. Put 2 and 2 together, and the answer is very obvious.
i still don't get what you're trying to say
if that wasn't the popular opinion, why is that the popular opinion now that she's useless? because people enjoy free elo?
Janna is 10 time more free elo than Sona has ever been, yet you don't see people whining about Janna
and Thresh is still broken as fuck tbh
TehNACHO1 votes[{quoted}](name=Puffball Reborn,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=uK1Fh2GQ,comment-id=000a000000000000,timestamp=2015-08-13T16:30:23.868+0000)
because people enjoy free elo?
Well that's one way of saying it...
VDc0zCqe0w2 votesWell that's one way of saying it...
then why people don't bitch about Thresh?
he's been broken since release
and why don't they whine about Janna?
TehNACHO1 votesExcept people do whine about Thresh.
And people especially thought Janna was dumb when she became a mid laner for that short amount of time.
Partholonian3 votes[{quoted}](name=Puffball Reborn,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=uK1Fh2GQ,comment-id=000a00000000000000000000,timestamp=2015-08-13T18:14:51.869+0000)
then why people don't bitch about Thresh?
What boards are you reading? He's one of the most complained about supports.
Even after his AA range nerf, which was actually a big deal.
he's been broken since release
He hasn't been broken since the AA range nerf. Still viable, but not broken.
Also: you ask why people don't bitch about Thresh and then immediately bitch about Thresh? Srsly?
and why don't they whine about Janna?
Because she's rarely played, and because tornado is so slow that they feel like anyone who gets hit by one deserves it.
Enosetc1 votesi feel like this is a thinly-veiled "why do people think sona is anti-fun" thread
VDc0zCqe0w1 votesi feel like this is a thinly-veiled "why do people think sona is anti-fun" thread
well i mean, there are not many poke supports tbh
Sona, Zyra, Karma and that's it, and Karma is quite playable
i would like Elise to be playable as support but Rito is evil
The Yetii Rider2 votes[{quoted}](name=Puffball Reborn,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=uK1Fh2GQ,comment-id=000b0000,timestamp=2015-08-13T17:34:38.745+0000)
well i mean, there are not many poke supports tbh
Sona, Zyra, Karma and that's it, and Karma is quite playable
i would like Elise to be playable as support but Rito is evil
Salidfingers1 votes
Moulin Rouge1 votesKarma has trouble poking down tanks who can take her whole mana bar before they're poked out of lane unless her runepage is full AP. Which is probably a bad idea because if it's leona who hooks you, then you're going down with no HP/Armor/MR runes.
A bad Malzahar1 votesWHen was Elise a common support pick?
League of Potato1 votesBecause it means that they actually have to use strategy, along with kiting to win their lane instead of just standing there and auto attacking. Never underestimate the laziness of the player base.
Minrog1 votesIt's the healing, not the poke. So more like 
. If the game rewards spam healing, then both teams will have to prioritize that over all the other kinds of support. Because adding extra healers is always better than adding any other utility, unless healing isn't very effective.
It's not like you see people bitching about , and he's better at poking than any of those you listed.
YossarianSensei1 votesPeople did bitch about Sona/Zyra/Lulu support endlessly
The problem was they had very little interaction, they were super safe to sit back and spam poke to force out the opposing laner. People like the concept of 'trading' in lane, but these poke supports were basically only weak to all in, which is a riskier and requires more coordination for obvious reasons.
VDc0zCqe0w2 votesPeople did bitch about Sona/Zyra/Lulu support endlessly
The problem was they had very little interaction, they were super safe to sit back and spam poke to force out the opposing laner. People like the concept of 'trading' in lane, but these poke supports were basically only weak to all in, which is a riskier and requires more coordination for obvious reasons.
and how is hyper snowballing Thresh-Blitz-Leona any less idiotic?
there is no such thing as "trading" with those guys, you just die or kill
Luner Hunter1 votesoh shit you mean the RPS (rock-paper-scissors) thing league is built on was ment to be used? poke > all in > sustain > poke Sona (poke) > Leona (all in) > Nami (sustain)
Yes sona can "sustain" but even in S3 her mana to hp values was horrid vs Nami's Mana to HP values, and nami has a ton more disengage than sona. Q knock up, E slow, R knockup + slow vs sona's PC/E (that no one ever used/uses) and her Ult